- Scirmish word game ....

In a nutshell....Scirmish is a head-to-head battle. From the opening salvo you use your guile, grit and guesswork to get the clues you need to unravel the puzzle you face.

All you have to do is find the six words hidden on your opponent's card. It sounds simple enough and you may be nudging gently ahead when uh-oh, your opponent makes a breakthrough.

Your comfortable lead is slashed, and now you're playing catch up. Not what you planned! Then suddenly you notice something. You'd been staring at it for a while and now it makes sense. And if that's what you think it is, (and you're pretty sure it is), then you're high and dry! Victory is yours!

Or is it ? There seems to be a telling glint in your opponent's eye. Who is going to unravel the puzzle first ? You or them ? One thing's for sure, it's going to be a furious Scirmish right up to the last!

The game in detail:

Each player has a printed Scirmish card with six connected mystery words and an empty grid (example below) ;

....and....

No cards are shown until somebody claims a "Scirmish" (a win). You race to complete your blank grid with your opponents six mystery words, before your opponent does.

Each card has one mystery word running down vertically and five others crossing it horizontally. All the horizontal words connect to the vertical word and all of the words on the card are themed - in other words they are somehow associated with each other.  (For example, all the mystery words on the card shown are something to do with flowers).

You begin by calling out a letter to your opponent and your opponent has to give you all the grid references where that letter appears on their card. (So let's say that your opponent had the card above and you asked for the letter O, your opponent would say "I have Os at B2, B3 and C3". You would then write the letter O on those grid references of your pad).

You take it in turns to call out letters and very soon you will see the shape of things that look like words beginning to appear on your card. As soon as you dare, you should make a guess at one of the mystery words on your opponent's card. Remember that all the words on the cards are linked to a theme so once you have guessed one word correctly, you have got yourself an extra clue as to what the other words might be. From that moment it's a tense battling race to reveal all six of your opponent's words before they guess yours.

Scirmish is a top quality game from Amherst Lodge like our Hard Line. It is a two-or-more player game good for adults and older children. The game includes cards with two hundred pre-printed word grids, full rules and Scirmish grid pads.